Regions of the country with large numbers of data centers — warehouses full of computers for artificial intelligence and cloud computing — face increased risk of outages during extreme weather events this upcoming winter, a new report by an energy reliability watchdog finds.

"Winter electricity demand is rising at the fastest rate in years, particularly in areas where data center development is occurring," the North American Electric Reliability Corp., or NERC states in its recently released "2025-2026 Winter Reliability Assessment."

Bulk power system resources, such as generation facilities, transmission lines and interconnections, are growing — "but at a slower rate than demand is rising," the report finds.

"Electricity demand continues to grow faster than the resources being added t

See Full Page